


Immortality

by privatesnarker



Category: Die Dreigroschenoper | Threepenny Opera - Brecht/Weill
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Bisexuality, Historical, Immortality, Immortals, Multi, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2019-04-01 02:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13988577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/privatesnarker/pseuds/privatesnarker
Summary: Mackie and Tiger and eternity.





	Immortality

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally part of the Sparkly Prompt Ficlet Collection, but it occurred to me that lumping ficlets for a bunch of different fandoms together into one work was kind of counterproductive; so here it is on its own. Written for cowardcotinga on tumblr, who prompted "Mackie and Tiger, immortality AU ".

Tiger finds out about Mackie during a cold and hungry winter, when, walking through the less savoury parts of town, he sees a man get stabbed for the dead chicken he was carrying. He steps forward to lay claim to the potential meal in turn - not like knives can permanently ruin his day, and he hasn’t had a bite in about a week - , only then the corpse gets up from the ground, and takes advantage of the would-be robber’s shock to relieve him of his knife, the chicken, and his life (not in that order). Mackie finds out about Tiger about two minutes after that, when he tries to make sure no tales about a mysterious undead chicken thief might ever get into circulation, and fails. In a way. Tiger never tells anyone, so.

Of course this shared quirk means that they are now best buddies who help each other through these hard times (according to Mackie), while sharing a special bond, closer than any mere mortal could ever fathom (according to Tiger). They’re both better, stronger, and more important than mortals, so killing them is only their natural right (Mackie), or at least cannot be wholly avoided (Tiger). Whenever they get too close to becoming infamous, they ditch one large city for another, and whenever there’s a war going on, they sign up and make sure they’re stationed in the same place. Mackie likes the war because he likes hurting people; Tiger likes the war because he likes being hurt a little less than Mackie likes hurting him, so it’s good when there’s enough distraction going on.

They frequently change locations, names, jobs, identities. Mackie never manages to stay on the right side of the law for more than three hours at a time, and doesn’t really try to either. Tiger goes through a wide variety of occupations, before settling on police work, despite Mackie’s jeering amusement. He tries to keep a low profile, to remain low-ranking and replaceable so nobody will take much notice when he drops off the radar and turns up in another town, but… after two hundred years he can’t help having learned a thing or two about how things work, and ends up rising through the ranks more by accident than intent. Mackie complains, at first, but shuts up when he realizes just how much more exploitable a higher position in the police force is. Tiger knows he will regret it, but comforts himself with the promise that in his next lifetime, his next role, he will do everything differently, choose a new job with no aspirations and remain a nobody. Just this once he wants some recognition, some reward, wants to be somebody to people other than Mackie.

Mackie’s amusement ends the day Tiger decides to do what men who look like they’re in their thirties with a promising career before them are expected to do, which is to marry with a view to starting a family. Mackie has married more times than both of them together have fingers to count, and that’s just the last decade. But Tiger was never allowed, even though neither of them ever said it. And now he’s gone and betrayed a few centuries worth of cloudless friendship by making a decision without asking Mackie’s permission. How very inconsiderate, how hurtful, how ungrateful a thing to do. Somehow, Mrs Brown survives her honeymoon without even knowing her life is hanging on a silken thread, balancing on the edge of a switchblade knife. It is a huge demonstration of goodwill on Mackie’s part, one that he will keep cashing in on for every day Mrs Brown remains alive and well. Sometimes, Tiger asks himself why he keeps on paying, why he won’t just admit defeat and let Mackie have her. Maybe he loves her. Maybe he needs her, to make his role convincing, to stop people from asking questions if she vanishes. Maybe he isn’t willing to give up the one thing he ever fought for.

Tiger never planned to become a father, and when he finds out he will he’s terrified, frozen in shock. Will the child be like him? Will it not? Which option is more horrifying? And what will Mackie do? Mackie congratulates him. Tiger waits for the explosion. It doesn’t come. Not yet. Years go by, and Tiger tries not to become attached, but it’s hard when there’s a little girl looking at him like he’s the most important man in the world. She will grow up all too soon, and other men will become more important to her, if he just waits out the critical first fifteen or so years… If there’s anything he has plenty of, it’s time. When she starts ignoring him, looking coldly at him over dinner, only talking to him in clipped sentences full of accusations and provocation, he tells himself it’s relief he feels. As if on cue, it’s around that time that Mackie seems to remember her. _Looks a lot like her mother now she’s all grown up_ , he says casually, taking a drag from the cigar Tiger is eyeing with wary defeat. He doesn’t know yet where Mackie will put it out, just that Tiger won’t like it. _Doesn’t look much like you, old friend. Think she’s really yours? Think she’s really special?_

…

In the end Mackie never gets to test his hypothesis, and neither he nor Tiger find out whether or not Lucy Brown is unkillable. She disappears some time after Mackie and Polly’s wedding, and it’s while Mackie is with Tiger and Polly, and no amount of police or private research can turn her up again. Mr and Mrs Brown lead a retired life away from the public eye after that. People say the loss of her only child broke her, and the former police president (stepped back from the job after that embarrassing mishap at the Queen’s jubilee during his continuing failure to capture and hold the city’s most notorious criminal) is caring for her all by himself. She dies before her time, shriveled by sorrow, haunted by decades of unnameable, inexplicable fear; of the secrets her husband kept, of all the things about him that never added up, of all the things she tried her best not to notice. The day after the funeral, the former police president is seen on the city’s biggest bridge, and– he must have been concealing weights under his clothes, because when he jumps he sinks like a stone. The current must’ve taken him, because his body is never found.

Nobody sees him climb out the river at the dead of night, even though he was half dreading Mackie standing there, tapping his foot and playing with his knife. But Mackie didn’t call this one, didn’t decide where they would relocate to and what to do next. There’s no escaping Mackie, not for good - the world is big, but they have time, too much time, all of it. He has no idea how living without Mackie would even work, it’s been so long. He’s going to try, for as long as he can stand it, or until Mackie tracks him down. He’s lost the first thing he ever fought for, and the one he was too cowardly to fight for even when he should have; now he wants to see what it’s like not having to fight, because his life is his own. It won’t last, but he hopes he’s managed to buy himself time, if only a little.


End file.
